I'm surprised no one else has thought of this: Snopes himself started this whole controversy in order to drive traffic to his site. By tsking and getting on your high horse and visiting the site to see these outrageous ads, you're falling right into his trap!
I was already a computer nerd many years ago when I got selected for a jury. I looked forward to it.
We chose a gregarious, confident middle-aged guy as our foreman. The judge instructed us that the charge -- auto burglary -- required two things for conviction: forced entry and intent to steal. (This was fascinating, since there needn't have been any successful theft. Alternatively, you could walk by a convertible with a $100 bill on the passenger seat, lean in and take it, and there would be no auto burglary.)
I was horrified when, in the depth of the discussion about how the car in question had been proven NOT to have been locked at the time, the foreman suddenly blurted out, "I don't care what the law says, if she went into someone else's car to take something, she's guilty!" Not everyone was horrified, though, and I had a tough time demonstrating the flaw in this guy's reasoning.
We eventually reached a compromise, where we found the defendant guilty, not of the original (felony) charge, but of a misdemeanor charge of "auto tampering." Worked for me, and the defendant was grateful, so I suppose justice was served.
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Someone should mod the camcorder used to document this, possibly with a tripod?
I'm surprised no one else has thought of this: Snopes himself started this whole controversy in order to drive traffic to his site. By tsking and getting on your high horse and visiting the site to see these outrageous ads, you're falling right into his trap!
My story about how flawed juries are:
I was already a computer nerd many years ago when I got selected for a jury. I looked forward to it.
We chose a gregarious, confident middle-aged guy as our foreman. The judge instructed us that the charge -- auto burglary -- required two things for conviction: forced entry and intent to steal. (This was fascinating, since there needn't have been any successful theft. Alternatively, you could walk by a convertible with a $100 bill on the passenger seat, lean in and take it, and there would be no auto burglary.)
I was horrified when, in the depth of the discussion about how the car in question had been proven NOT to have been locked at the time, the foreman suddenly blurted out, "I don't care what the law says, if she went into someone else's car to take something, she's guilty!" Not everyone was horrified, though, and I had a tough time demonstrating the flaw in this guy's reasoning.
We eventually reached a compromise, where we found the defendant guilty, not of the original (felony) charge, but of a misdemeanor charge of "auto tampering." Worked for me, and the defendant was grateful, so I suppose justice was served.